Ernst's role in sex assault case questioned

In recent days, Iowa Senate hopeful Joni Ernst has pitched herself as a leader-in-waiting on the hot-button issue of sexual assault in the military, telling Time that she experienced harassment firsthand while serving and calling for investigations into sexual misconduct to be removed from the chain of command.

But Ernst’s familiarity with the issue goes beyond that: A decade ago, when she was serving in the National Guard in Kuwait, a soldier under her command was accused of rape in a case that military investigators later deemed unfounded. And her role in the case is coming under scrutiny as the Republican state lawmaker is locked in an election that could tip the balance of power in the Senate.

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Ernst told the accuser in 2012 that she had nothing to do with the probe by the Criminal Investigation Command, or CID. “I was not involved with the investigation — period,” she wrote in an email to the woman. But a document obtained by POLITICO shows that Ernst took statements at the scene and provided them to CID investigators.

Ernst’s campaign would not make the candidate available for an interview, but representatives denied any discrepancy. They acknowledged that Ernst collected statements from occupants of the accused man’s tent and gave them to investigators, but said she had no bearing on the investigation. While the statements Ernst took may have been used to check the consistency of witness accounts, the campaign representatives said, the CID conducted an independent probe and concluded on its own that the rape allegation was unfounded.

The sequence of events, documents show, unfolded like this: A man under the command of Ernst, who was a National Guard captain in Kuwait, was accused on New Year’s Day 2004 of raping a female servicemember from another unit. Ernst requested statements from the occupants of the accused man’s tent and delivered them to the CID investigating officer, according to an investigative report.

The investigating officer “coordinated with CPT ERNST. [The officer] learned that CPT ERNST had identified all occupants of [the accused solider’s] tent and requested they all provide her with a statement documenting their knowledge of the events of 1 Jan 04. CPT ERNST provided these statements to” the investigating officer, investigators wrote in a report.

In parenthesis, the report then says, “see statements for details.” Additional military documents on the case were not immediately available.

The campaign referred a reporter to retired Maj. Gen. Mike Nardotti to speak about the case. Nardotti was not involved in the investigation at the time, but he reviewed documents and said Ernst acted appropriately. Nardotti, who has supported congressional candidates in both parties over the past 15 years, said he has no affiliation with the campaign. He previously served as the army’s judge advocate general.

“No matter what the local command does, it has no effect on CID,” said Nardotti, now a partner at lobbying giant Patton Boggs. “The fact that she told them to basically prepare statements, that’s fine,” he said, referring to the statements that Ernst collected from subordinates after the accusation was first made. Nardotti noted that the case ultimately was dismissed, though the accused man was punished for drinking alcohol.

The accuser, whom POLITICO interviewed in May, was discharged “under honorable conditions” from the military a month after she alleged the rape occurred, according to a certificate of discharge. The reason cited was misconduct. There was no direct explanation in the documents for that apparent contradiction.

CID determined initially that she made false official statements and then swore to them, according to Army correspondence. In 2011, CID conducted a “thorough review” of its earlier investigation and determined the false swearing offense was unfounded, the correspondence shows. The finding that she made false official statements was not changed at that time.